Welsh Sports Hall of Fame honours five new greats

The Welsh Sports Hall of Fame inductees were honoured in Cardiff on Thursday, with cricketer Hugh Morris accepting his via a video message

Iwan Thomas, Liza Burgess, Jim Roberts, Liz Johnson and Hugh Morris have been inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame.

World, Commonwealth and European gold medal-winning 400m runner Thomas, Wales women’s first rugby union captain Burgess, wheelchair rugby player Roberts, Paralympic swimming champion Johnson and England and Glamorgan cricketer and administrator Morris bring the number of inductees over the past 34 years to 186.

There were also other special awards at the ceremony held in Cardiff on Thursday night.

Both Hall of Fame president and chair, Lynn Davies and Laura McAllister, were honoured with a Rhodri Morgan Memorial Award for outstanding services to Welsh sport.

Sixty years after winning Olympic long jump gold in Tokyo, Davies was presented with his award by double Olympic decathlon champion Daley Thompson.

Former Wales football captain McAllister, the first Welsh delegate to earn a seat on the Uefa executive committee, received hers from Cardiff Metropolitan University vice chancellor Rachel Langford.

Iwan Thomas was inducted into the Hall of Fame with a presentation from his former team-mate and fellow inductee Jamie Baulch.

Thomas won 400m gold for Wales at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, was European champion in the same year and won 4x400m relay gold and silver medals for Great Britain at the 1997 World Championships and 1996 Olympics.

“I’m really honoured. I’m really proud,” Thomas told BBC Sport Wales. “Some days it feels like it was only yesterday I was running around that track, other days it feels like 25 years, which it was.

“To be celebrated for what I achieved so many years ago is just an honour, and it always was a massive honour to run for Wales because it wasn’t very often. It was only every four years at the Commonwealth Games. It was very special.”

Wales’ first women’s rugby union captain and try scorer, Burgess received her award from the great Sir Gareth Edwards.

A former vice-chair of the Welsh Rugby Union, Burgess’ career spanned three decades, playing in Wales' first women's international in 1987, captaining her country 62 times, playing in four World Cups and coaching in a further two, earning her a place in the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2018.

The Hall of Fame also honoured two Paralympians for the first time in 11 years.

Roberts helped Great Britain win gold at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, capping a remarkable journey to the top of his sport having had both his legs amputated below the knee aged just 19 in 2007, a culmination of a life-threatening bacterial meningitis infection.

Newport-born swimmer Johnson won medals in three successive Paralympic Games from 2004 to 2012, with the highlight being her SB6 100m breaststroke gold in Beijing in 2008.

Morris received his award a week early as he was away due to a family wedding. Glamorgan president Alan Wilkins handed over the trophy.

Morris enjoyed a stellar career on and off the field, first as captain and prolific batter for Glamorgan, earning three Test caps for England, before going on to serve as chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board and then returning to Glamorgan in the same role.

Cardiff Swimming Club, the UK’s most successful independently funded swimming club, was presented with a Lord Brooks award for 50 years of outstanding service to Welsh sport.

During that time, the club has produced 20 Olympians, including clubs vice chairman Leigh Atkinson and Anne Adams-King, who received the award from double Olympic gold medallist Matt Richards.

The Peter Corrigan Welsh Sports Media award went to Alex Bywater of the Daily Mail.